Central Bank of Ukraine

LUHANSK, November 28. /TASS/. The Central Bank of Ukraine has ordered the branches of the country’s banks in the self-proclaimed republics of eastern Ukraine to remove or destroy money, Interior Minister of the self-procalimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) Igor Kornet told a ministerial meeting on Friday.

“Latest reports say that the Central Bank of Ukraine held a meeting with the chairmen of departments of all the banks that have branches on the territories of LPR and DPR (self-proclaimed Donetsk People's republic - TASS) and issued a decree to either remove or eliminate funds from all these banks’ branches,” Kornet said.

A series of attempts to destroy money in the LPR branches of Ukraine’s banks have already been reported, the minister said. Earlier this week, police prevented the employees of Oschadbank, one of the biggest in Ukraine, to eliminate a large sum of money.

The bank in particular had planned to destroy $1.86 million, 396,400 rubles ($8,100) and 659,241 hryvnias ($44,000), but the plot was uncovered by local police. The funds are currently protected by the bank.

In early November, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced that Kiev was suspending payments of around $2.6 billion, mostly for public sector wages and pensions, for people in the conflict-hit eastern Donetsk and Luрansk regions.

Leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic described Kiev’s decision to stop paying pensions in the region as a war crime.